


Knights Behaving Badly

by Felis Draconis (opposablethumbs)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opposablethumbs/pseuds/Felis%20Draconis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Knights of the Round Table have gone on a mission without their King. Anything could happen. Except sorcery.</p><p>Specific warnings: Inadvisable levels of alcohol consumption. It’s teetering towards the cracky with mentions of cross-dressing and implied bondage. All relationships are implied/non-explicit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knights Behaving Badly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thursday_Next](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thursday_Next/gifts).



> Wowee! I haven’t been this productive for years! Set in the bridge between S4 & 5, this is sent a little awry by S5x6 but contains no spoilers. Gifted to Thursday_Next because she's had to put up with all the noob-squees, with love and thanks.

It had been a long day’s ride. The Kingdom of Arlaevan was hard, rocky country that made the backside ache, even for the saddle-toughened posteriors of the famed Knights of the Round Table.  
  
Still, their quest had been successful. Camelot had a strategic new ally and, excluding a small misunderstanding in a tavern, no-one had been captured, injured, enchanted or possessed.  
  
“It’s funny,” said Gwaine, as they stopped to make camp.  
  
“What is?” Elyan sighed. After three days travelling with Gwaine, he thought he had reached the end of what ‘funny’ could possibly mean.  
  
“Well, we never seem to have any trouble when Arthur isn’t here.”  
  
“What’re you suggesting?” Leon said, tying his horse to a nearby tree and patting its neck soothingly.  
  
“Nothing,” Gwaine replied. The others allowed him a pause, hopeful that he might take the hint. Percival unloaded their belongings and set a fire in the centre of the small clearing. He kicked away some of the larger rocks, attempting to level the ground, only to find that beneath the larger rocks were smaller rock and beneath those followed; pebbles, shale, shingle and a grit that got in everywhere. The rocks would have probably been preferable.  
  
“I’m just saying,” continued Gwaine after an uncommonly long respite, “that Arthur is a magnet for all sorts of weird shit.”  
  
The three other knights stared at him. One of the horses shook its head and whinnied disapprovingly.  
  
“Gwaine!” Leon chastised.  
  
“What? We can’t swear when Lord High and Mighty comes with us, we might as well do it while he’s laid up with a groin strain.”  
  
“That is the King you’re talking about,” Elyan reminded.  
  
“Aye, and it’s your sister like as not gave him the injury,” retorted Gwaine. “Ouch!” he yelped as Elyan’s tin dish flew at his head. “You fellers need to relax a bit,” he admonished, rubbing his temple. “I know just the trick.”  
  
Gwaine moved from the circle of firelight, finding his saddlebag and rummaging within it in the gathering gloom. Rope, the tooth of a seawharl, his whetstone... “Ah! Found it,” he said, his hand alighting on a fluted flask. He withdrew it. The liquid within sparkled in the twilight.  
  
“What is it?” Elyan asked, transfixed by the starry blue liquor.  
  
“This, Sers,” Gwaine explained, “Is the famous Elixir of the Fireflower. A brew so potent that as few as three drops has been known to knock a man clear off his horse.”  
  
“Is it a potion?” Leon asked suspiciously.  
  
“You drink more’an three drops of it and you will believe you can fly,” Gwaine explained. He stalked back into the clearing, to the bubbling pot of stew that Percival was preparing, and sprinkled a few dribbles into the mix.  
  
“Easy there,” Percival growled.  
  
Suddenly, Gwaine’s eyes went wide with fear. He pointed to a space behind the other knight’s. “Oh by God!” he exclaimed. “Is that... could it be..?”  
  
Elyan, Leon and Percival jumped to their feet, hands going to their swords to a man. In the moment of distraction, Gwaine upended the bottle of liquid into the stew. “Oh, no, sorry, my mistake. It was only a tree,” he said, concealing the empty in a fold of his cape.  
  
Grumbling, the other men took to their seats again. Percival thrust his sword into the earth poignantly close to Gwaine’s feet. Gwaine hummed a little tune to himself, settling his back against the stump of a blasted oak. “How long until dinner is ready?” he asked sweetly.  
  
“It will be done when it’s done, Gwaine,” Percival said, stirring the thickening broth.  
  
Gwaine smirked and made himself comfortable. “Enough time for Elyan to go find a brook and fill the skins,” he said.  
  
****  
  
“That is...” Percival surreptitiously fanned his mouth, “quite a spicy stew.”  
  
Leon whimpered and quaffed from his sheepskin of water.  
  
“It’s not... that bad,” strangled Elyan.  
  
“You’re a bunch of pussies,” smirked Gwaine. He partook of another heaped spoonful of stew. Despite his brave words, his eyes watered and he hoped the sweat on his brow wasn’t too obvious in the firelight. “Percival,” he said. “That bowl of yours looks a little empty. G’on, there’s a bit left.”  
  
Percival swallowed noisily and waved his hand until he found the breath to speak. “No, no, help yourself,” he offered.  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gwaine said. “The chef should always take the lion’s share.”  
  
“You don’t say that when Merlin does the cooking,” Elyan pointed out.  
  
“Ah, but Merlin is only a slip of a man. And the way I hear it, Arthur likes it that way.”  
  
A whole medley of cutlery and crockery was hurled in Gwaine’s direction. It rained spoons and stones and even a dumpling. “What! We’ve all thought it!” squawked Gwaine. The downpour ended, and Leon grunted with what sounded like grudging acceptance.  
  
“You know what we need to go with this delicious dish?” Gwaine asked, picking suet from his hair.  
  
“What?” Elyan asked.  
  
“Some beer.”  
  
“We haven’t got any,” Percival said.  
  
“Mead?” Gwaine suggested.  
  
“We had to give it to the tavern owner to pay for those broken tables.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Gwaine grinned. “Hey!” he said, “what about the wine?”  
  
“Gaius said that should only be used for medicinal purposes,” Leon said.  
  
“You are such an old hen,” Gwaine chastised. “And anyway, this  _is_ a medical emergency.”  
  
“How so?” Elyan asked.  
  
“Well,” Gwaine said smugly, “If you think it’s hot on the way in, imagine how it feels on the way...”  
  
“I’ll fetch the wine,” Elyan interrupted.  
  
****  
  
“...and Arthur was just wearing a pair of leather gloves,” Gwaine concluded.  
  
“Nooo...” the others wallowed.  
  
Gwaine held up his sword hand. “On my honour,” he swore. “All these nobles are randy little bastards.”  
  
“Hey!” Leon exclaimed.  
  
All eyes turned to him.  
  
“I’m a noble,” he grumbled.  
  
Elyan giggled. He was useless when it came to holding his drink.  
  
“I rest my case,” Gwaine said.  
  
“I’m not a randy bastard,” Leon replied.  
  
“That’s what you say,” Elyan added.  
  
Percival snorted into his mug of wine.  
  
Gwaine rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled across the clearing to Leon. Although the campsite was not very big, it took him quite a long time, wobbly as he was and the fire being inadvisably warm to topple in to. He eventually came to rest very close to Leon’s side. He poked the whiskered cheek of the other man’s face.  
  
“I bet you have all sorts of filthy dark secrets,” he suggested.  
  
“I do not,” Leon said huffily.  
  
“Ah, g’on,” Gwaine cajoled, “You can tell us. We’re your brother’s in arms, your mates.”  
  
“There is nothing to tell you.”  
  
“I bet he has a thing for old women,” Elyan piped up. He lolled a little to one side, nudging against Percival who righted him gently.  
  
“With scraggy hair and pendulous breasts,” Gwaine added.  
  
“And warts,” Elyan offered.  
  
“Aye, and warts,” Gwaine agreed.  
  
“And really fat ankles,” Percival added.  
  
Gwaine turned his poking finger on Percival. He shook it loosely. “That as well,” he said.  
  
Leon flustered. “I do not like women with fat ankles, warts, scraggy hair...”  
  
“And pendulous breasts,” Gwaine reminded.  
  
“Or those!”  
  
“Well then, tell us.”  
  
“There’s nothing.”  
  
“There must be.”  
  
“Truly, I have no secrets.”  
  
“ _Everybody_ has secrets,” Elyan said.  
  
“Listen to the man,” Gwaine advised. “You’re only hiding from yourself.”  
  
“I am _not_ hiding!” Leon squeaked.  
  
“He’s hiding something,” Elyan said.  
  
Percival nodded.  
  
“I am not.”  
  
“Are so,” Gwaine countered.  
  
“Not,”  
  
“So,”  
  
“Not!”  
  
“Just admit you like to lie with shrivelled old spinsters!”  
  
“That isn’t it at all!” Leon blurted.  
  
“Ah, but there is something,” Gwaine crowed victoriously. The other knights chuckled darkly. “C’mon,” he said. “You might as well tell us now.”  
  
Leon dipped his head. “It’s... not important.”  
  
“But...”  
  
“When I was younger...”  
  
The knights shuffled in attentively.  
  
“My mother used to dress me up as a girl.”  
  
The clearing went very, very quiet. Even the soft champing of the horses seemed to still. Suddenly, Gwaine burst into howls of laughter.  
  
“A girl!”  
  
Leon’s face was crimson, even by the dulling embers.  
  
“What, with frilly dresses and pinafores and...”  
  
“A little dolly, yes,” Leon snapped. “And she used to call me Leah.”  
  
Barely able to catch breath for laughing, Elyan gasped “Why?”  
  
“Well, I was the youngest of four boys. My mother... she always wanted a girl. And when father died, she knew she would never have one.”  
  
“She sounds as mad as a barrel of badgers, your mother,” Gwaine said.  
  
“She was a fine lady, of an impeccable family line,” Leon explained with a frown. He sighed. “But yeah, she was a few silvers short of a sovereign.”  
  
“Gwen said she smuggled you out of the dungeons in a dress, but I didn’t think it was a regular thing,” mused Elyan.  
  
“It isn’t!”  
  
The others looked at him. Gwaine raised his eyebrow.  
  
“It was my mother, I didn’t do it out of choice,” Leon excused.  
  
“I can’t believe she made you a girl.” Gwaine laughed lightly before concern folded his brow. “Hang on, she didn’t..?”  
  
“Didn’t _what_?”  
  
“ _Make_ you a girl,” Elyan clarified. All eyes were on Leon or, specifically, on one part of Leon. He clutched his hands in his lap.  
  
“No!” he exclaimed. “ _No_!”  
  
There was an unconvinced pause. Suddenly, Gwaine clapped his hands together.  
  
“Well, now that’s sorted,” he said, “I need to pee.”  
  
“And I,” Elyan agreed. He glanced at Percival.  
  
“And I,” Percival agreed hastily.  
  
“And you?” Gwaine asked of Leon.  
  
“I’m fine,” Leon replied through gritted teeth. He shifted in his seat.  
  
“Waterfalls,” Elyan said.  
  
“Dripping pumps,” Percival offered.  
  
“A lovely big piss,” Gwaine concluded.  
  
Leon scowled and shifted uncomfortably some more. “Fine,” he conceded after a moment. “We’ll all go pee together.”  
  
****  
  
“Take that, tree imp!” Leon bellowed in a manner most unbefitting a knight of Camelot. His weapon of choice for banishing the imagined sprite was neither sword nor spear and had certainly never been used in a melee.  
  
“At least we now know he still has all his wherewithal,” Elyan said.  
  
“I bet I can make it over that branch,” boasted Gwaine.  
  
“Twenty silvers that you can’t,” Percival offered.  
  
Gwaine held out his hand to seal the wager. Percival looked at it.  
  
“Think where that hand’s just been,” he cautioned.  
  
“Oh, fair point,” Gwaine replied. He planted his feet and attempted to make good on his claim.  
  
“Useless,” Elyan judged.  
  
“That’ll be twenty silver pieces,” Percival said.  
  
Gwaine tutted. “I left my money in my other armour.”  
  
“Does anyone fancy more wine?” Leon asked.  
  
The knights cheered and made back for the campsite.  
  
****  
  
“So...” Gwaine said when they were once more ensconced around the rekindled fire. “Leon has told us all about how he likes to dress up as a lady...”  
  
“I didn’t say...”  
  
Gwaine ignored him. “So what about you, Perci? What dark, terrible secret do you have?”  
  
Percival the big, bold bulwark of a man shrank in on himself. “I’m not a noble,” he said.  
  
“No, but you have shifty eyes,” Gwaine countered.  
  
“Hang on,” Elyan said. “Aren’t _you_ from a noble family?”  
  
“How do you know that?” Gwaine snapped.  
  
“Gwen told me.”  
  
“That sister of yours should be bound and gagged,” Gwaine grumbled. “Unless she likes...”  
  
He got no further before a veritable storm of accoutrements were launched in his direction. He defended himself pathetically against the onslaught.  
  
“So if you’re a noble,” Leon said, chucking a twig at his filthy-minded counterpart, “then by your own logic you must have some twisted secret yourself.”  
  
“And I know what it is,” Elyan said with a smirk.  
  
Gwaine looked up from under an assortment of foliage and forks. He caught Elyan’s eye. “Oh, no,” he said.  
  
“Come on, Gwaine,” Elyan jibed.  
  
“Not that,” Gwaine said.  
  
Elyan’s smile widened.  
  
“What? What did he do?” Leon hounded.  
  
“ _Do_ is the operative word,” Elyan replied.  
  
“You swore to take that to your grave,” Gwaine threatened.  
  
“I think you’ll find you told me to take it to my grave and I laughed in your face,” Elyan said.  
  
“ _What did he do_?” Leon demanded.  
  
“Gwaine was in the Fulsome Flagon,” Elyan began.  
  
“I will never forgive you this.”  
  
“And he’d been drinking.”  
  
“This isn’t the most unusual start of a story,” Percival said.  
  
“Wait,” Elyan cautioned. “So, he’d been drinking and he reckons that someone was giving him the eye, right?”  
  
“Dear God, that’s horrible,” Leon interrupted.  
  
“Shut your face, Leah,” Gwaine countered.  
  
“Anyway, he goes over and then he realises...”  
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” Gwaine said, holding up his hands. “If we’re going to tell the story, it needs to be told properly.”  
  
“Well then,” Leon said smugly, leaning back and cupping his wine to his chest.  
  
Gwaine sighed. “I had been in the Fulsome Flagon for most of Samhain, as you do.”  
  
“As _you_ do,” Leon observed.  
  
“And I had, as _Ser Elyan_ says,” he shot a filthy look at Elyan, “been drinking quite heavily. Anyway, I had just completed my famous rendition of the Ballad of St Beatrice...”  
  
The other knights groaned, they had heard the bawdy before.  
  
“...when I caught a figure in flowing silk staring at me from beneath a heavy cowl. Of course, that isn’t unusual in of itself.”  
  
Elyan nearly choked on his wine.  
  
Gwaine ignored him. “So I, being a good and generous knight bought the lady a drink and took to the table with her. Well, one thing led to another...”  
  
“...and Gwaine brings _her_ back to the barracks,” Elyan provides.  
  
Percival’s face twitched with a concealed smirk.  
  
“Where Elyan was waiting like a goblin in my chambers...”  
  
“I was looking for saddlewax,” Elyan explained.  
  
“Who waxes their saddle at two in the morning?” Gwaine challenged. Elyan closed his mouth and sulked. “Anyway, so there we were, in my chamber,” Gwaine continued. “And I began to unpin my britches...”  
  
“Do we really have to go into this amount of detail?” Leon asked in a pained voice.  
  
“Shush,” said Percival, and the others turned to look at him. His ears turned the colour of his cape and he became very interested in the grit before him.  
  
“And I’m hard as a petrified snake,” Gwaine continued. “So I move to untie the lady’s bustle but she bids me to leave her hood in place. I figure she’s not much of a looker, or has lost all of her hair...”  
  
“But you’re still undressing her?” Leon asked.  
  
Gwaine shrugged. “Anyway, I make it past her bustle, her dress, her underdress, the petticoat, the underskirt...”  
  
“And...” Leon said.  
  
“And?” Percival enquired.  
  
“ _And_ ,” Elyan prompted.  
  
“And she was wearing boxered undergarments.”  
  
“Boxers?” Percival said. “Why?”  
  
“Because...” Elyan said smugly.  
  
“Because she had a cock,” Gwaine cut in. “So I pull back the hood and it’s not an unfair maiden, it’s...”  
  
“Some druid bloke in ceremonial robes!” Elyan concluded victoriously.  
  
“No!” Leon exclaimed.  
  
“What did you do?” Percival gasped.  
  
Gwaine leaned back. He folded his hands behind his head. “Well, what would _you_ do?” he asked.  
  
“Um...” Percival stammered.  
  
Gwaine smile enigmatically.  
  
“You never did,” said Leon. “Elyan, tell me he never did.”  
  
Elyan shrugged. “I don’t know, I was back in my own room by then. But some of the noises I heard...”  
  
“It’s was the night of the unquiet dead,” Gwaine said flippantly. “Screaming and moaning is to be expected.”  
  
“Yeah, but I’ve never heard a spirit say: ‘ _by the triple Goddess, where did you learn to do that!_ ’ before.”  
  
Leon stared at Gwaine with a crooked look of not-quite-disbelief. “I’m glad I only dress up in private,” he muttered.  
  
Gwaine laughed. “I knew it!” he called.  
  
Leon grumbled and avoided the eyes of the other’s in the circle.  
  
“Buuuuuurp.” The belch echoed through the forest, bouncing off the many rocky outcrops.  
  
They all turned on the source of the noise: Percival.  
  
“Better out than in feller,” Gwaine congratulated. He joined Percival in the gaseous relief.  
  
“You are foul,” Leon chastised.  
  
“Like you never break wind,” Gwaine said.  
  
Elyan opened his mouth. “Bu...” The abortive sound croaked out of it, a half-formed belch that sounded more like the grunt of a newly-foaled deer.  
  
“Pathetic,” announced Gwaine. “And, for your ineptness, I challenge you to reveal the secret of your heart.”  
  
Elyan glanced furtively in the direction of his large, bare-armed counterpart. “What about Percival?” he asked.  
  
“We’ll get to Percival,” Gwaine promised, “but it’s your turn now.”  
  
Elyan cleared his throat. “I, uh, yeah,” he stammered. “I... don’t think anything of mine will match up to yours.”  
  
“Well, we all knew that anyway Elyan,” Gwaine mocked. “But I’m less interested in the contents of your britches as I am with where you disappear to every Sunday after training.”  
  
“Oh, that.”  
  
“Yes, that,” Gwaine said.  
  
“I have wondered about that myself,” Leon mused.  
  
“It really is nothing.”  
  
“Which means it’s something,” Gwaine countered.  
  
“It’s not really a secret.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know about it.”  
  
“Nor I,” Leon said.  
  
Percival shrugged and sipped his wine.  
  
“Alright,” Elyan said, squaring his shoulders but tipping his head to one side in a way that made him look more off-kilter than before, “On Sunday afternoons I run a stitching master-class for the women in the lower town.”  
  
A shocked silence echoed around the clearing. “You... sew?” said Gwaine, aghast.  
  
“As in fabric, needle, thread...” Leon gaped.  
  
Elyan shrugged. “Well, yeah. My father was a blacksmith, my mother a seamstress. In the same way Gwen knows about metalwork; locks, keys...”  
  
“Shackles” Gwaine interrupted.  
  
“I know about needlework; hemming, embroidery, appliqué.”  
  
“Being a big girl!” said Leon.  
  
“You wear dresses!” Elyan countered.  
  
“No, Leon’s right,” Gwaine mused. “This is definitely the most disturbing thing we’ve heard all night.”  
  
“You just don’t understand,” Elyan said. The drunkenness seemed to fall from him as he focussed on his colleagues. “A lot of these women have hardly any education, their husbands marry them young so that they have no idea of anything better. My mother was one of the lucky ones, father treated her with respect and as an equal but for most of the women of lower town, they are just seen as a cheap way to get a servant. My sewing circle gives them somewhere to go that’s just for them, where they can meet others like them and pick up some new skills as well as support.”  
  
“I think that’s very noble,” Percival said. He squeezed the forearm of his friend with a tenderness that belied his sized.  
  
Leon and Gwaine muttered an abashed agreement.  
  
“I don’t remember much about my mother,” Percival murmured. “She was taken in a raid by Cenred’s men when I was five.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Percy,” Leon said.  
  
“I’m sure she was a fine woman,” Elyan agreed.  
  
“And she would have been proud of you,” Leon concluded.  
  
Percival nodded sadly.  
  
“Cheer up,” said Gwaine. “It’s just the drink talking. First you drink, then you piss, then you tell stories, then you get sad...”  
  
“And then?” Percival asked.  
  
“Well, either you get into a fight or you sing.”  
  
Gwaine looked Percival up and down.  
  
_“There once was a maiden  
Called Mollith the fair  
And blue were her eyes  
And golden her hair...” _ He began.  
  
****  
  
_“And that was the tale  
of Mollith the fair!”_ Elyan, Gwaine and Percival chorused together. Laid out on the ground in a messy heap, Leon snored.  
  
“Pass the wine,” said Elyan.  
  
Gwaine tossed him the bottle. Elyan tipped it up into his glass and a few ruby drop dripped from it. “S’finished,” he grumbled. “Open n’other one.”  
  
“No more t’open,” Gwaine said. “It was pretty good’ve ol’ Gaius to send us with as much as he did.”  
  
“He was prob’ly thinkin’ we’d get in more trouble’n what we did.”  
  
“Yeah, with magic. N’ _sorcery._ ”  
  
“S’always fuckin’ sorcery, ain’t it?” Elyan asked.  
  
“ _Who used the last of the toileting cloth, Merlin_?” Percival mimicked in a passable attempt at Arthur’s tones.  
  
“ _I’m sorry, My Lord. It must have been **sorcerers**_!” impersonated Gwaine, in a less-faithful rendition of Merlin’s voice.  
  
The knights fell about, snickering. Leon grunted and muttered something about a cuttlefish.  
  
“You know what I’d do if I was a magician?” Gwaine asked.  
  
“Wha’?” Elyan replied.  
  
“I’d make myself invisible and listen to what people really thought of me.”  
  
“You’d make yourself invisible and go hide in the women’s bath-house,” Elyan countered.  
  
“Well, yeah, obviously that,” Gwaine agreed, “But after that I’d do the other thing.”  
  
“I’ll tell you what I think of you right now,” Percival offered.  
  
“S’not the same,” said Gwaine mournfully.  
  
“If I was magic, I’d use it to turn all these bloody stones into gold,” Elyan said, running his fingers through the barren soil.  
  
“And then?” Gwaine asked.  
  
Elyan shrugged. “Buy stuff,” he said.  
  
“Well done,” Gwaine replied. “What ‘bout you Perci?” he asked.  
  
“I dunno,” Percival said. “I think magic should be a force for good.”  
  
Gwaine pulled a face. “Yeah, but as well as that. Remember you can have anything you want.”  
  
“I dunno,” Percival repeated.  
  
“Come on; Elyan’s rich, I’m invisible, what’s your heart’s desire?”  
  
“Well...”  
  
Gwaine nodded encouragingly.  
  
“I’d like someone to love,” Percival conceded.  
  
“A _wench_?” Gwaine said. “You don’t need magic for that Perci. Flash them arms in any tavern and they’ll come running.”  
  
“Not a wench,” Percival corrected. “Someone who I love and who loves me.”  
  
“Aww,” said Elyan. He hiccupped.  
  
“And is there no-one you have your eye on?” Gwaine said.  
  
Percival shook his head.  
  
“Never?”  
  
Percival shrugged.  
  
“I mean, _never_?” Gwain asked.  
  
“What are you getting at, Gwaine?” Percival said.  
  
“You know,” Gwaine replied with a jaunty wink. “Lain with.”  
  
“There are more important things than lying with someone.”  
  
“So you’ve never...”  
  
“I have never, nor will I ever until I have found my true love.”  
  
“And you never get... the urge?”  
  
Percival sighed. “Well of course I do, but I channel it into other things.”  
  
“Like polishing your helmet?” Gwaine suggested.  
  
“Polishing my armour, brushing down my horse...”  
  
Gwaine shook his head. “That’s such a waste,” he said. “Fine man like you? Even Elyan here’s tipped his spear on occasion.”  
  
“Hey!” Elyan said.  
  
“What! I’m just saying that with a fine example of knighthood such as myself beside you, the pickings are always going to be scarce.”  
  
“You’re a tit, Gwaine,” Percival said.  
  
“I’m not invisible yet,” Gwaine reminded. “Anyway...” he added with a yawn and a stretch. “It’s late and we need to make it to Kemlen by nightfall tomorrow.”  
  
Elyan grunted and laid himself out, head on his bundled saddlebag. “Night, Gwaine,” he said.  
  
Percival lent back against a boulder, wrapping his cloak over his bare arms. “Night Gwaine,” he echoed.  
  
Gwaine waited until he heard an enchordant set of snores rumble about the campsite. He stoked the fire with the stick that Leon had thrown at him earlier and then threw it among the embers.  
  
“Goodnight my friends,” he said quietly and closed his eyes.  
  
****  
  
“Euuuugh,” Elyan groaned.  
  
“My tongue feels like I licked a hydra’s ballbag,” Leon cursed.  
  
“I will never drink again,” agreed Percival.  
  
“Morning boys!” Gwaine trilled.  
  
“Why’re you so bloody cheerful?” Leon asked.  
  
“ _How_ are you so bloody cheerful?” Elyan added.  
  
“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Percival.  
  
“Practice,” Gwaine explained. “There’s bacon blackening on the fire,” he said.  
  
Percival made a curious noise. “’scuse me,” he muttered, and went to do something private.  
  
****  
  
It was much later in the day that the knights were ready to ride than it would have been had Arthur been there. Dawn was exchanged for late afternoon, and it was a good job no-one needed to follow any tracks because the majority of them, Gwaine excluded, could barely find their own horses.  
  
Finally, bridled, saddled and seated, the four knights trotted from the clearing and made their way back to the path. No-one seemed over-inclined to break into a canter and they clustered together in a tight formation.  
  
“I, uh, just wanted to say,” said Leon after a while, “about last night...”  
  
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with us,” Elyan promised.  
  
“All of our secrets are safe together,” Leon agreed. “By my honour as a knight.”  
  
“By my honour,” Elyan swore.  
  
“By my honour,” confirmed Elyan.  
  
They all looked at Gwaine. He shrugged. “What goes on on a quest, stays on the quest,” he agreed nonchalantly.  
  
“Gwaine...” Leon reprimanded.  
  
“Oh, alright, by my honour I won’t tell anyone that you dress as a woman, Percival’s a closet romantic virgin, or that Elyan’s hobby is stitching floral patterns into silk. And I definitely won’t say anything about my accidental encounter with a druidic priest. OK?”  
  
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Leon said.  
  
Gwaine rolled his eyes and spurred his horse to the front of the group, setting the pace. Percival followed, leaving Leon and Elyan lagging behind. “I, um, wanted to ask,” Leon said quietly, drawing to Elyan’s side. “Do you think you could..?”  
  
“I’ll see if I have any material long enough for you,” Elyan agreed.  
  
Leon nodded his silent thanks and set off after the others.  
  



End file.
